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Atlanta Hawks defy turmoil to top NBA’s Eastern Conference

It is somewhat remarkable to see where the Atlanta Hawks are today considering where they were scant months ago.

The Eastern Conference-leading Hawks — who have won 22 of 24 games and bring a 31-8 record into Friday night’s game with the Raptors — were as dysfunctional as any franchise in pro sports before this magical season began.

General manager Danny Ferry, who is still on an extended leave of absence, was under fire for intemperate remarks that surfaced regarding his pursuit of free agent Luol Deng.

Ferry made some crack at a meeting about Deng “having some African in him” and was quickly dropped from any decision-making role with the Hawks. And then, controlling owner Bruce Levenson created a firestorm of controversy when a racially-charged email he wrote about Atlanta fans became public; Levenson stepped back from involvement with the team and said he would sell his share in the team before commissioner Adam Silver, who had already dealt swiftly and strongly with former Clippers owner Donald Sterling, could mete out any punishment.

They were horrible times around a listing franchise plagued by poor attendance, little interest around the league and a team that seemed to be lurching from crisis to crisis.

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But somehow — and it speaks to the resolve of the players, coaches and the basketball side of the operation — that turmoil did not spill over into the on-court performance.

The Hawks simply ignored the mess in the front office, hung on while centre Al Horford got completely healthy and have turned into one of the great stories of the year so far.

It remains to be seen if it can be sustainable over an 82-game season, but the Hawks play an entertaining style that plays to their three-point shooting strength and have become one of those seldom-seen teams that are very much more than the sum of their parts.

Kyle Korver remains one of the best three-point shooters of his generation, Jeff Teague is an underrated, lightning-quick point guard, Paul Millsap is a steady presence and the Hawks have found some magical formula for amazing success.

It’s taken all the attention off the front office and ownership issues that could have torn the organization apart had it not been for the strength of will of the coaching staff and roster.

Attendance is up, the Hawks are deserving of their leaguewide reputation as a consistently dangerous opponent and there seems no reason to think they’ll fall off dramatically in the second half of the season.

Attendance is up, 100 per cent of the team and the arena where it plays are for sale and groups are lining up to make bids on it.

And the bids are being made with the plan to leave the Hawks right where they are; four months ago the odds would have suggested a move would have at least been contemplated.

Now? Not at all.

“I do want to see the Hawks stay in Atlanta, and we’ve made that clear to the market,” commissioner Silver said this week.

What a difference some time makes and, whatever ultimately becomes of this Atlanta season, what they’ve done as an organization since those dark days is truly remarkable.

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Around the league

Mikhail Prokhorov was heralded as something of a saviour when he bought a controlling interest in the New Jersey Nets in 2010. Deep-pocketed and willing to spend in order to win, he revitalized the franchise with its move to Brooklyn and promised an NBA title within five years. News broke this week that he has hired a firm to help facilitate a sale — he may have been all that but he’s also got a level of impatience to him, it seems. And it might go to show that there are no easy fixes in the NBA and owners cannot simply spend their way to success . . . Hang on to any hopes of an NBA European division for a little while. Commissioner Adam Silver, in London for Thursday’s Bucks-Knicks game, said the idea is intriguing, but not imminent. “It is on our list as something that we continue to explore, but we do not want to get ahead of ourselves — it is something we continue to study,” he told the BBC. “There is an opportunity to bring NBA basketball to Europe on a permanent basis. It is something we ultimately want to do, but a lot of work needs to be done.” There goes that Rome-London-Madrid road trip for the time being . . . Much speculation this week on when, or if, the Los Angeles Lakers would give Kobe Bryant some extended time off to rest his 36-year-old body and coach Byron Scott said this: “If we’re nowhere near playoff contention in March . . . then we might discuss that.” Today, the Lakers are 12-27, 10 games out of the final playoff spot and would need to climb over six teams to get to eighth in the West. It’s March now . . . Does Portland’s Damian Lillard love the pressure of late-game situations? Well, he leads the league with 232 fourth-quarter points this season and 58 of them have come in the final five minutes of games that are within five points . . . With the Cleveland Cavaliers at 19-20 at the moment, Elias Sports Bureau points out that no team under .500 after 39 games has ever gone on to win an NBA title in that season.

As our Thursday-to-Thursday weeks go, this is one of the toughest of the season. All good opponents, a couple on the road and an afternoon-evening back-to-back thrown in for good measure.

Not a cupcake among them and a good litmus test to see just what’s needed in the future.

The best realistic hope might be for a split of the four, a 1-3 week would be perhaps more realistic and if they go 3-1 it will be reason for rampant joy and celebration.

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Can-Con

Mississauga’s Nik Stauskas may not be having the greatest of rookie seasons on the court, but he’s making a name for himself lately in social media circles.

A Sacramento Kings fans asked through Twitter whether he could take Stauskas’s girlfriend to his high school prom and Stauskas, after talking to his beau, consented, as long as the young fan got 10,000 retweets of his original request.

The kid got them and Stauskas has become something of hit for his willingness to go along with the escapade.

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20 weeks, 20 things

Monday is Martin Luther King Day in the United States and the NBA is a leader in honouring the memory of the great civil rights leader.

The Raptors, of course, have never hosted a Martin Luther King Day game, but they have been involved in the celebrations as visitors many times.

The most emotional had to be the two times they played a matinee game in King’s hometown of Atlanta. One of them was even more special to members of the organization, falling as it did a day before Barack Obama was sworn in as the first African-American president of the United States.

The holiday may not resonate as much in Canada as it does in the U.S., but that was a special few days in Raptors franchise history.

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